I studied at Columbia and I have to say his tales of class snobbery are a bit over the top. Me and a lot of my friends were poor and did not feel ostracized abo

I studied at Columbia and I have to say his tales of class snobbery are a bit over the top. Me and a lot of my friends were poor and did not feel ostracized about it. And although there were some rich kids and Saudi heiresses in class, the displays of wealth were more likely to be subject of jokes than the other way around. I remember people made fun of one girl because she took a cab to school every day (we would usually walk to school or use the subway). In general the students in my class considered themselves progressive and enlightened so any snobbery towards poor people was very unlikely to be popular. I think the writer had some bad luck in that he joined a program witch was considered to be a cash cow for the university so he ended up with a lot of rich kids. Although now that I think of it, my program was also to be considered a bit of a cash cow. If there is anything wrong with the way the school treated him, it is the fact that no-one pulled him aside to tell him something like "hey kid, this program is for rich kids and financial aid will be harder to come by, so try to find something else."